


That's Where I Belong

by orphan_account, Prop_Logic



Series: You belong with me [11]
Category: Rugby RPF, Rugby Union RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Miscommunication, Rainbow Laces, Relationship Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, i'll add more as they come - Freeform, past unhealthy relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:13:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21636418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prop_Logic/pseuds/Prop_Logic
Summary: Two years into their relationship, Owen and Dylan start to settle into a new phase of life, on the back of Dylan's retirement and facing the prospect of moving in together.An exploration into the developing Farrell-Hartley household, and a look behind to how they got here.
Relationships: Dylan Hartley/Owen Farrell
Series: You belong with me [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1299182
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _Well_ , then... Flashy summary to be writing to His Dark Materials... What was originally meant to be a simple rainbow laces fic evolved, and then evolved again, and is now going to be multi-chaptered! :)
> 
> I do apologise to you all now for what you're about to read, and I have to say that I never realised until I wrote this that David Flatman has similar speaking patterns to Alex Goode. It was... a strange discovery. 
> 
> Also, I'll be updating/adding tags and characters as I go with this, so we'll see what happens/how often I'll actually remember to do that...

With a deep breath, Owen settles into one of the seats indicated, shifting nervously as Dylan lowers himself into the second of the pair and trying to pretend that the cameras around them don’t make him uncomfortable. Wordless, Dylan reaches out to lace their fingers together, squeezing in gentle reassurance, and the gesture is enough to have Owen relaxing slightly, aware that this means a lot to Dylan to be doing this – and honestly, it means a lot to him, too.

“Ready?” comes the check, and Dylan nods for the both of them, Owen straightening to face David Flatman – thank _fuck_ for Channel 5 giving them someone he knows – as the cameras start rolling. “And… Action!”

To Owen’s relief, the snap of the card brings only a twitch from his tightly wound muscles, Dylan’s amused smirk practically unnoticeable to the untrained eye as Flats clears his throat.

“Dylan, Owen, it’s good to see you both…”

“Good to see you too, Flats,” Dylan returns, Owen mumbling a quiet agreement as he pretends not to notice the lenses trained on them.

“Now, Premiership Rugby have partnered with Stonewall, and this week a lot of the players are wearing rainbow laces. Dylan, this obviously doesn’t apply to you,” Flats grimaces slightly apologetically, “But Owen, are you going to…?”

“Yeah,” Owen shifts his position as he realises that he’s slouched slightly within the last few moments. “Yeah, I’ll have them on.”

“Good to hear,” Flats nods at him, Dylan’s thumb rubbing lightly over the back of his hand. “What I really want to get down to with the two of you, though, is… why it’s so important to do things like this. Because a lot of people, I guess they sort of think… You know, ‘it’s not that important, it’s just a little marketing trick,’ but it’s not, is it?”

“No,” Owen allows, chewing his lip. “No, it’s really not. It… It means a lot, especially to young kids, who might be… who might be coming through the system or just growing up watching the game, and to see that – that they’re accepted, and that they’re welcome, is really important.”

“I don’t know whether you’ll mind me saying this,” Flats ventures carefully, and Owen tries to hide his apprehension as he shifts yet again, “But we’ve known each other a fair while, I reckon, and I’ve never known you to be someone who beats around the bush or shies away from saying things – you keep to yourself on camera, but face to face, you know… So I think, for me, it says something that a lot of people – myself included – only found out anything about you being gay a year ago, doesn’t it?”

Awkwardly, Owen swallows and tries to think of a response that doesn’t leave him feeling too vulnerable.

“Yeah,” he agrees cautiously. “I guess… I guess it probably does. Growing up, a lot of what I heard about being gay was that it was wrong, and even when people didn’t necessarily… _mean_ that, I probably – I heard a lot of insults and talk that probably sunk in, and I just got used to keeping quiet about it.”

“When we were with England, I remember there were times when we’d be talking about relationships,” Dylan offers. “The Sarries boys knew, of course, and whenever anyone tried to get Owen to talk about it, they’d be there to jump in and start teasing him mercilessly, just so he didn’t actually have to say anything.”

Taken aback, Owen blinks at his boyfriend. He doesn’t remember knowing that Dylan had ever noticed that, but already, Flats is nodding along, so Owen shakes it away for the time being. If he wants to, he can bring it up with Dylan later, though he’s not sure it feels that important.

“So even your teammates didn’t necessarily know?” Flats asks quietly. “That must have been difficult to manage, surely?”

“I… Yeah,” Owen admits, a flush starting to creep up his neck. “I guess it was. But it seemed… It felt like it was better. For me, for the team… I don’t know. I never really… _realised_ that – I never thought about it much until Dylan started getting upset on my behalf –”

“How do you mean?”

“Oh…” Owen wracks his brain for an example. “Just… Whenever it came up, we got into some – some pretty heated arguments sometimes, because to me, it was just… normal, to hear people say things. It hurt, but you just – you move on and pretend it’s fine. But Dylan would get angry that someone had said that, or whatever, because… I guess he could see it wasn’t right, and I just…”

Trailing off, he looks away and shrugs, trying to hide his growing discomfort.

“This has actually caused arguments?” Flats raises his eyebrows.

“Yeah,” Dylan sighs. “I guess because to me, as Owen said, I could see it wasn’t right, and that no one should be made to feel that way, because I’ve spent most of my life not necessarily _knowing_ about this part of me, so I never really noticed how bad it was, whereas Owen knew from – what, your mid-teens?”

Owen nods in silent confirmation, turning slightly to watch Dylan speak. His boyfriend’s brow is creased, his free hand gesticulating as he talks, and Owen can see him starting to get worked up, that indignation rising once more before Owen’s eyes.

“So for him, he grew up used to feeling ashamed of it and just keeping his head down, going along with some pretty terrible banter because for him, and for a lot of LGBT kids, that was the only way to be sure you’d be accepted. And I didn’t necessarily always understand why he wouldn’t stand up for himself or for those kids, because I didn’t have that experience, and I never had it drilled into me that this part of – of who you are should be locked away and kept out of sight. So I got frustrated, and so did he – but we’ve learnt our lessons in communication, I reckon.”

“And I guess that’s why this is so important, right?” Flats presses, leaning forward in his chair. “People think, ‘oh, it’s just banter, they’ll get over it,’ but actually, it’s a lot more than that isn’t it?”

“It is,” Owen confirms. “Even if – if you think you’re… confident in your sexuality – I mean, I tend to think I am, these days, but last year, during the semi-final, hearing some of what was said – it hit very close to home.”

“Owen’s probably going to ask you to cut this out, but he cried over it when he got home,” Dylan tells Flats, quiet and solemn as he squeezes Owen’s hand. “And that was probably… progress, really, because he’d never actually admitted how much that sort of thing hurt him to hear before. But you also look at… It took us a year to come out to the England boys – and not much less than that for me to tell Saints. There was a long time when we couldn’t go out in public together, because we just didn’t want anyone to know. If it hadn’t been a big deal, I think it would have made things a lot easier – if it had just been a case of telling people we were together, and nothing to do with our sexualities.”

“A year?” Flats repeats. “ _Jesus_. So how long have you two…?”

“We celebrated our two-year anniversary last Friday – the 22nd. Well, I say we celebrated it…”

Owen has to snort as Dylan grimaces awkwardly.

“Oh?” Flats raises his eyebrows again, curious.

“We, ah… We forgot,” Dylan admits. “Sarries had a game the next day, I was heading to Bedford… So we went out for a meal on Sunday instead.”

“You forgot?”

Flats’ tone is disbelieving, his expression filled with sheer incredulity as Owen manages a sheepish shrug.

“Rugby,” he offers, which gets a laugh from the ex-player before Flats sits back to shake his head.

“Fair enough, you two. Right, well, that probably covers it, so… Thank you to both of you for coming today and sharing that, and hopefully we can make some changes to the mini Owen Farrells of the world.”

“God help us all,” Dylan mutters, and Owen has to shove him, trying not to laugh; it’s the principle of the thing, really.

Two days later, Owen watches the edited clip of the two of them with Dylan pressed up against his side, taking in his own expressions and trying to pretend that it doesn’t affect him as much as it does to hear those words from his own mouth as well as Dylan’s. Of course, Dylan sees right through him, tugging him impossibly closer by the arm around his shoulders as Dylan’s recorded counterpart admits that Owen cried over the homophobic abuse aimed at him in the summer (Owen agreed, with much persuasion, to leave it in).

“I love you,” Dylan whispers, utterly serious as he kisses Owen’s temple, and Owen turns his head to connect their lips properly, drawing away only to return the sentiment before ducking back in.

The clip ends without either of them noticing, but Owen’s fairly sure that there won’t be anything in there that he doesn’t like, and really, Dylan’s much more entertaining than his own awkward stammering over topics that he doesn’t entirely know what to say about.

“I was thinking we could head up to Northampton on Saturday morning rather than trying to get to my place after your match in the evening?” Dylan murmurs when they part again. “Maybe bring some of my things back down after Saints’ game, too?”

“Sounds good,” Owen agrees, well aware of the anticipation twisting subtly in his gut. “By the way, if I’m going to be supporting them, do I need to find some of your Saints kit to wear?”

“No,” Dylan snorts. “Though I wouldn’t say no if you wanted to.”

Rolling his eyes, Owen leans in for another kiss.

“Just hope no one decides to be a prick,” he mumbles against Dylan’s lips.

“They won’t when I’m around,” Dylan assures him. “At least, not the home fans.”

“My knight in shining armour,” Owen returns sarcastically, grinning as Dylan puffs out his chest and turns up his nose. “I feel safer already.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you from the evil hound known as ‘Ron’,” Dylan drones, clearly fighting back a smile as Ronnie lifts his head to stare blankly at them from the floor, settling back down a moment later with a quiet huff. “See? Clearly intimidated.”

“He just doesn’t view you as any kind of threat,” Owen grins, amused. “C’mere, Ron…”

Slowly, Ronnie pushes up to his feet and pads over, front paws lifting to settle on Owen’s thighs as Dylan moves his laptop carefully out of the way. For a minute, Owen fusses over him, then glances over at Dylan.

“He’s not scary, is he?” he croons, scratching behind Ronnie’s ears. “He’s just a big softie. That’s right, Ron – he’s a big softie, innie?”

Ronnie snuffles closer to him, nosing at his cheek.

“He agrees with me,” Owen tells his boyfriend, grinning as Dylan kicks him lightly. “Aw, Dyl… I’ll make it up to you later.”

“You’d better,” Dylan grumbles, crossing his arms with a mock frown. “My masculinity is in ruins.”

“What’s new?” Owen can’t resist firing back, poking at his latest multi-coloured shirt.

“Leave the shirt alone!” Dylan protests lightly, and Owen laughs at the pout that forms over his boyfriend’s features. “It’s a fine article of clothing. Some people just can’t appreciate good fashion.”

“I don’t need to have a good fashion sense to know that _that_ is not it.”

“Right, you…”

Ronnie jumps backwards with a bark of alarm as Dylan lunges for Owen, apparently intent on starting an impromptu wrestling match.

“Taking a leaf out of Hask’s book, are we?” Owen pants out as he fends off Dylan’s attacks. “I _knew_ he was a bad influence on you!”

“I’ve been an influence on him for longer!” Dylan retorts, grabbing hold of one of Owen’s wrists to try and hold the attached hand out of his face. “ _Jesus_ , this is harder than I thought it’d be.”

“Got a Back’s agility,” Owen tells him smugly, aware that he’s on the verge of getting trapped and making the executive decision to slip sideways underneath Dylan and down onto the floor. “You Forwards… think strength is – is everything…”

“Fucking hell…” Dylan groans, pouncing once more, and Owen’s faintly aware of Ronnie escaping the room. “You’ve definitely got the fitness advantage.”

“I have, have I?” Owen beams triumphantly as he rolls them over, settling on Dylan’s hips as the older man slumps back against the carpet to suck in several lungfuls of air. “What were you saying about your masculinity?”

“That you love it the way it is?” Dylan offers, making a weak attempt to push Owen off then giving up completely.

“I do,” Owen agrees easily. “I do.”

For a few seconds, silence falls, and Owen allows himself to relax slightly, only for Dylan to surge up, rolling them back over and taking advantage of Owen’s surprise to grip his wrists and pin them to the floor.

“Fuck…” Owen grunts, struggling to no avail, and Dylan grins down at him.

“You might have the fitness advantage, but I’m older and wiser,” his boyfriend points out, satisfaction dripping from every syllable. “Now, what were _you_ saying about my masculinity?”

Sighing, Owen lets his head drop back against the floor, going lax in Dylan’s hold.

“That I’m playing on Friday and you need to be careful?” he offers, and Dylan laughs, but doesn’t release him.

“I reckon you look pretty safe down there,” comes the amusedly calm reply. “Less chance of you hurting yourself, hmm?”

“Fuck’s sake…” Owen grumbles, trying briefly to twist out of Dylan’s hold then stilling when he realises that the action causes a friction he hadn’t previously considered – _actually_ … “Maybe you could give me a demonstration of your masculinity, then?”

“What, and that wasn’t…?” Dylan trails off, eyes widening with realisation as his pupils expand. “You know, if you behave, I might just be able to manage that.”

“Who said anything about behaving?” Owen counters, struggling again, and mirrors Dylan’s anticipatory grin.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Dylan pants some time later, slumping down onto the carpet at Owen’s side – Owen briefly entertains a joke of, ‘that was the idea,’ but decides he’s above that – then huffs out a faintly amused breath. “Can you imagine if I _had_ injured you?”

“You’d have Mark after you,” Owen returns immediately, though he’s smiling as he says it, entirely satisfied by the outcome of their play-fighting.

“You’d have to tell him how it happened for that,” Dylan points out, annoyingly reasonable as he pushes slowly back up into a sitting position. “‘You see, Mark, it was all my _wonderful_ boyfriend’s fault, because _I_ asked _him_ to fuck me on the carpet –’”

“You attacked me first!” Owen protests, allowing Dylan to tug him up then wincing at the pull on his skin the action causes. “ _Shit_ , I’ve actually got carpet burn as well…”

Dylan looks all too smug to hear that, and Owen takes great delight in shoving him – gently – before twisting in an attempt to see the red marks properly.

“Come here,” Dylan sighs, rolling his eyes, then peers around to examine Owen’s lower back. “That actually does look quite bad – you might want to put something on that.”

“See?” Owen grumbles. “You’ve damaged the goods…”

“‘The goods,’” Dylan chuckles. “Now who’s been influenced by Hask? Good luck explaining that to the lads, by the way.”

Deigning to ignore that, Owen stands then stoops to collect his clothes, ignoring Dylan’s appreciative hum.

“Are you joining me in the shower or not?” he throws over his shoulder as he heads for the door, and bites back a smirk as Dylan scrambles to move, unable to resist the urge to turn and watch the older man’s naked activity from the doorway. “Your neck’s not looking too great, by the way.”

“I told you to shave,” Dylan returns, turning with a sigh to follow him out of the living room and up the stairs.

“Tomorrow,” Owen assures him, rolling his eyes at the stairs in front of him. “I’ll even let you watch me do it.”

“Twat,” Dylan mutters, his rolled-up shirt cracking across Owen’s arse, and with a muffled yelp, Owen twists to glare at him without heat.

“I can’t believe you _touched_ me with that monstrosity!”

Only a quick reaction time saves him from another hit as Dylan lunges up the stairs towards him. Laughing, Owen continues on his way up to the bathroom, happy that Dylan’s own smile is bright and free of the subtle weight that Owen has seen sinking over him since he formally announced his retirement. He’s been noticing it with increasing regularity over the last few weeks, and only his certainty that Dylan isn’t ready to talk about it has kept him quiet, but if distracting him stops working quite so well as it does at the moment – or if Owen stops enjoying it, though that doesn’t seem likely – then he might have to bring it up.

Not yet, though.

“ _Shit_ , Faz, what’d you do to your back?”

Groaning, Owen casts his eyes up to the ceiling, steels himself for the ensuing conversation, and bats Jamie’s questing hands away, tugging his pre-match shirt swiftly on to hide the deep red patches of skin.

“Leave off, Jinx,” he warns, settling down on the bench and occupying himself with his boots – already threaded with rainbow laces – to avoid having to meet his teammate’s eyes. “It’s just carpet burn.”

“ _Carpet burn_?” Jamie repeats, apparently disbelieving. “How the _fuck_ did you…?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Owen watches Jamie’s eyes widen, his friend’s jaw dropping in surprise and delight as a grin stretches threateningly across Jamie’s face.

“Faz, don’t tell me _Dyls_ gave you that?” he prods, nudging Owen’s shoulder.

“Dyl might be hairy, but he isn’t that bad,” Owen bites back, offering a roll of his eyes and tugging his shirt firmly down when Jamie tries to tug it up to see the marks again. “Believe it or not, mate, it was a _carpet_.”

“Don’t be difficult, Faz,” Jamie shakes his head, still beaming smugly. “We support you, remember? You and your carpet burn are welcome here, isn’t that right, lads?”

Owen buries his face in his hands as Jamie raises his voice to address the room, feeling his cheeks start to warm.

“What’s that, Jinx?” Mako’s confusion is audible.

“I’m just reminding Owen that he’s welcome here, on this special weekend,” Jamie tells them all gleefully. “We’re all accepting of him – _and_ his mysterious carpet burn.”

“ _Carpet burn_?” Elliot echoes, disbelief evident in his voice, and Owen finds himself mildly disturbed by how similar the younger man’s reaction is to Jamie’s. “ _Oh_. Oh, _Faz_ …”

Cheeks now scalding his palms, Owen shakes his head in silent refusal to acknowledge any of them. If he can’t see the problem, it goes away. Maybe that hasn’t worked since he was a small child, but it’s worth a shot now, isn’t it?

“Where?” Maro prompts, as thrilled by the prospect as Jamie.

“Lower back,” Jamie returns, gleeful. “Looks pretty serious – you’ve got to wonder how much force it must have taken…”

_Dick_.

“Lads,” Owen tries finally. “It’s not what you –”

“Isn’t it?” Brad snorts. “Then please, I think we’d all like to know what caused such a _terrible_ injury.”

Giving up, Owen resorts to his tried and tested defence: a raised middle finger that has the whole team cracking up instantly.

_Well, it’s good_ some _people are enjoying themselves._

With a shrug, he shakes his head and mumbles a quiet ‘fuck off,’ which goes unnoticed by everyone.

“If anything goes wrong, mate, we’ll know who to blame,” Jamie assures him, still grinning as he wanders off to his own kit, and Owen stares after him with narrowed eyes.

Clearly, he’ll just have to make sure nothing does go wrong.

A couple of hours later, as the ball sails over their heads to the touchline, Titi rubbing his head gingerly, a hand lands firmly on Owen’s back, right on top of the friction burn.

“Just didn’t quite have the rotational lumbar mobility for the pass?” Jamie winks at him, and Owen settles for getting his revenge in training next week.

It’s dark outside the windows, the street far beyond deserted as a cold fog descends, creeping between buildings but locked out by the security of the house, its heating system powered back up for the short time it will be needed in this stark winter evening.

“I should get round to putting this place up for sale,” Dylan sighs quietly, staring around his kitchen with a mug of coffee cradled in his hands, and Owen nods in silence, letting his boyfriend take a moment to himself. “…Maybe wait and see if there’s someone moving to Saints who could use it.”

“Might already be someone who’s looking for a permanent place,” Owen offers finally, chewing at his thumb nail, and Dylan nods in acknowledgement, blowing out a breath. “Or if you want to keep it, it could be useful whenever you’ve got to make trips up this way.”

“No,” Dylan shakes his head. “Not a good enough excuse – I could just stay over at someone’s place for the night if I had to, or get whatever broadcaster to pay expenses for a hotel. No, I’ll sell it. I’ll just… miss it.”

Owen can’t find anything else to say to that; he doesn’t think there needs to be anything said to that. This has been Dylan’s home for many years, now, and there’s not much more to it than that. Of course Dylan’s going to get sentimental over it.

“You want to stay the night?” he suggests, unsure whether it’s really a good idea or if Dylan will just feel worse about it, and isn’t really surprised when Dylan shakes his head.

“Nah, we’ll just finish our coffee, get some things and get going – you alright to drive for the first stretch?”

“Should be,” Owen confirms. “I might just text Jinx, though – ask him to check on Ronnie.”

Checking his watch, Dylan nods in quiet agreement, then wanders over to set his coffee down and sling his arms over Owen’s shoulders from behind, dropping a kiss to the crown of Owen’s head.

“Step One,” he murmurs quietly, “Moving in.”

“Step One?” Owen repeats, amused. “Steps of what? And how many are there?”

“Making you the happiest I possibly can,” Dylan tells him, far more weight to his words than Owen expected. “And me, too, obviously. And there are a few more steps.”

For several seconds, Owen’s lips work soundlessly as he struggles with a response to something so poignant and solemn.

“Like what?” he hears himself ask after a long moment, settling back into Dylan’s chest.

“Like Step Two,” Dylan tells him, matter of fact. “Making sure that we’re ready to get married. And Step Three: proposing. Step Four: getting married. Step Five…”

Owen waits, barely aware of holding his breath as Dylan’s hand rubs absent-mindedly at his collarbone.

“Spoil you with as many children as you want,” Dylan concludes, and Owen manages a weak, startled laugh.

“ _Spoil_ me?” he repeats, Dylan’s ribcage vibrating with laughter behind him.

“Let’s be honest,” Dylan tells him, “I like children a lot, but you _love_ them.”

Slightly embarrassed, Owen shifts and shrugs.

“Maybe,” he admits. “…I don’t remember not wanting to be a dad.”

“Exactly,” Dylan tells him, satisfied. “And I’m rather fond of the idea myself.”

It’s easy to relax in the comfortable silence that falls, Owen’s head dropping slowly back against Dylan’s chest as his boyfriend reaches for their temporarily forgotten mugs of coffee to drag them closer. Dylan is warm, familiar, his embrace comforting and nothing short of exactly where Owen wants to be.

“I love you,” he whispers, unwilling to break the peace altogether, and Dylan hums in quiet satisfaction.

“I love you too,” the older man replies, then just has to be his usual irritating self, bringing out a nickname that Owen had honestly hoped was forgotten. “… _My little Fazlet_.”

“Fuck off,” Owen grumbles, good-natured, and whacks his arm lightly, Dylan chuckling delightedly in his ear all the while. “That’s not even a _thing_ …”

“But it is!” Dylan singsongs. “It’s _you_.”

“Then I’ll be an irritated Fazlet if you don’t stop,” Owen returns, regretting conceding even an inch when Dylan laughs aloud.

“Aw, my poor…” Dylan presses a kiss behind his ear, and Owen bats half-heartedly at him.

“ _Dyl_ …”

“Little…” is accompanied by another kiss.

“ _Dylan_ …”

“Irritated…” and another.

“ _Dylan Hartley_ –”

Dylan leaned around, lifting a hand to turn Owen’s head so that their lips could meet, cutting off Owen’s words with yet another kiss.

“ _Fazlet_ ,” Dylan beams, clearly delighted with himself.

“For _fuck_ ’s sake,” Owen grumbles, but he can’t be angry, or even more than vaguely irritated, with Dylan smiling at him like that.

He never can.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas/Season's Greetings, everyone! Er... This is why we don't listen to sad music or piano in general while writing or even thinking about writing. Actually, no, I'm pretty sure I was listening and that then *got* me writing... At any rate, I'm pretty sure I now need to update some tags.
> 
> Oh, and sorry to Luther Burrell - I didn't mean to write him as a bit of a dick, but it just ended up fitting the narrative like that. Obviously, all representations of real people are entirely fictional, etc.
> 
> And this is set over the first Saints v Leinster game (y'know, the *first* thrashing - that's the one) and in the week following. Because I keep meaning to start making that sort of thing clear instead of leaving people to guess, but this'll have to do for what might be a particularly ambiguous chapter.

Luther’s hand is warm as they shake, Dylan briefly fighting the urge to cling to the appendage, because his coat doesn’t quite seem to cut it right now. It feels like a while since he last saw his old Saints teammate, but Luther looks as fresh as ever, smile bright as their breath clouds in the air between them.

“How’s League?” Dylan offers, settling his hand back into the safety of his pocket, and Luther’s beam widens, his nod enthusiastic.

“It’s good, yeah,” he assures happily. “It’s a good switch-up, you know? What about retirement – Faz looking after you in your old age?”

Huffing a laugh, Dylan shoves down the slight sense of creeping insecurity that accompanies Luther’s comment and nods.

“Yeah, we’re finally moving in together,” he admits, Luther’s eyebrows rising. “I was going to talk to Chris after the game about seeing if any of the lads are looking for a house.”

“Decent!” Luther nods. “Congratulations. Sounds like it’s going well.”

“It is,” Dylan agrees quietly, and he can’t stop his thoughts from drifting back to Owen yesterday morning, waking drowsy and comfortable in Dylan’s arms on a rare occasion when Dylan woke before Owen’s alarm, looking to the world like he belonged there, and Dylan knows it’s selfish to wish that Owen could have stayed there a little longer instead of heading to the club to train, but he’s finally beginning to understand the pain his old teammates’ partners felt.

He thought it would all be easier once he retired; he didn’t realise that he’d just want even more.

“It’s just strange,” he hears himself admit, and Luther cocks his head in silent curiosity, “To see it from the other side, you know? Like, to wish he wasn’t going away for weekends, to spend my Saturdays worrying about what condition he’ll be in when he comes back.”

Slowly, Luther nods, but Dylan gets the feeling that his teammate doesn’t really understand what he means. That’s fine, really, even if it is a reminder of how quickly he’s falling away from it all. He never expected anything else.

Somehow, after that, the broadcasting seems harder than the games he’s done before. He makes the usual jokes at his own expense, laughs along with his companions’ comments, but the game slips away from Saints and it hurts too much to watch, because he can’t fight the thought that he wants, so desperately, to be out there with them, so instead, he turns his attention to his phone for as much of the match as he can get away with, only giving the game enough focus to be able to talk about it afterwards.

“Who’ve you been texting?” Luther murmurs at a break in play, leaning over to see his screen, and Dylan tilts his phone away quickly. “…Faz?”

Sighing, Dylan nods.

“Something you don’t want me to see?” Luther prods, a grin stretching across his face when Dylan rolls his eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re distracting him before his game.”

“He started it,” Dylan defends easily, slipping his phone into his pocket for the time being; Owen won’t mind being left for a few minutes – never does, when he’s with Saracens.

“Excuses, excuses,” Luther tuts, shaking his head as he nudges Dylan gleefully. “You’re meant to be older, mate. More mature.”

Unwilling to admit how little he likes talking about the age gap with anyone outside of, well, Owen alone, Dylan snorts.

“Come on,” he scoffs, unable to entirely keep the defensive note from his tone but managing, he thinks, to just about disguise it from Luther’s ears. “He’s got a good enough brain on him.”

“Grew up young,” Luther nods sagely, like he knows anything particular about Owen’s childhood – what the fuck is that even meant to mean? “Seven… Six years, right?”

“Five or six,” Dylan mutters, and doesn’t admit that it’s _exactly_ five and a half, hoping that Luther will drop it soon.

He’s sorely disappointed.

“You have to admit,” Luther hums, leaning back in his seat to watch the game without pausing in his speech, hands folding over his stomach, “Faz doesn’t seem like someone who’d be into older men, you know? But each to their own, I guess. Is he like the… you know…?”

Bemused, Dylan waits for Luther to fill in the rest of that question, because he really doesn’t know, but Luther only coughs awkwardly, shrugging. Dylan’s just about to return his attention to his phone, still confused, when Luther speaks again.

“You know, like, in gay relationships,” his old teammate starts carefully. “There’s sort of… you know, one of them is like…”

“You’re asking if he’s the woman,” Dylan fills in flatly as realisation strikes to leave him utterly unimpressed, and Luther shakes his head frantically.

“No! No…?” he hesitates visibly. “Maybe? I don’t know. But I mean, he’s gay and you’re, what, pretty much straight? So there’s got to be something in that, right? And that _is_ an age gap, mate…”

“We’re two men in a relationship,” Dylan responds, trying not to get too sharp, because Owen is always telling him to tone down his irritation in the face of ignorance. “That’s all there is to it.”

“Yeah, but…”

Apparently, Luther doesn’t know when to leave it; Dylan folds his arms and sets his jaw, turning his own eyes back to the game while the ex-Saint struggles for words.

“Who takes it up the arse?” Luther blurts out finally, seemingly mortified the second it comes out, but it’s too late, and Dylan doesn’t care how much the other man regrets it.

“Is that really any of your business?” he demands, anger rising with each passing second; having recalled the homophobia during Saracens’ semi-final and its effect on Owen only recently for the interview with Flats, the question hits far too close to home.

What business is it of Luther’s to ask a question like that when there are people who have mocked Owen over the same assumptions – to the point of tears?

“Who gives a shit if I fuck Owen or he fucks me? Why does it always have to be the same way around? You think, what? Because he’s younger than me and he’s gay, he must be less masculine? And that means that he’s the bottom all the time in this? You know, it’s pricks like you who don’t know when to leave it who make him so insecure about his sexuality in the first place! It’s none of your fucking business, alright?”

Slowly, eyes wide with alarm, Luther raises his hands, but the gesture seems frustratingly mocking.

“Alright…” Dylan’s ex-clubmate speaks carefully, almost patronising. “I won’t talk to you about your relationship, Jesus – defensive, much?”

With a huff, Luther turns back to the game, and Dylan forces himself to leave it, fishing his phone back out of his pocket to find that Owen has apparently had to finish the conversation while he was dealing with Luther.

_need to go, love you x_

_Love you too x_ , he returns, unsure if Owen will even see it before the game, then remembers to add, _Good luck_

At the end of the match, when their broadcasting duties have been wrapped up, Dylan’s farewell with Luther is markedly stiffer than normal, more for show than anything else, and Dylan has to wonder how many people will hear Luther’s complaints about Dylan having a stick up his arse in the coming days.

It doesn’t matter, really, and he has a DoR to catch, which shouldn’t be too hard; he just has to hang around by the clubhouse entrance for Chris to appear and snag him for a few minutes on his way home. It might be a good excuse to see a few of his old teammates, too – or maybe that will seem like he’s trying to keep himself relevant past his time. On second thoughts, it might be best to keep to himself while he waits.

“Dylan!” Chris beams on seeing him, reaching out for a handshake that Dylan accepts easily. “How’re you doing, mate? How’s the knee?”

“It’s…” Dylan sighs, grimacing. “It’s holding up.”

Chris nods, sympathetic.

“And the family? Owen looking after you?”

Is _everyone_ going to make a comment about that? Dylan isn’t some decrepit old man, unable to function without assistance, and it’s all very well hearing the joke once or twice, but having to play along every time he talks to someone is getting tiring very quickly.

“Owen’s fine,” he fills in hurriedly. “We’re moving in together – which is what I wanted to talk to you about, actually.”

Eyebrows rising questioningly, Chris settles his elbow on the railings that separate crowd from pitch.

“And here I thought you just wanted a catch-up,” the older man sighs, mock-disappointed as Dylan chuckles.

“That too, that too,” he assures. “But I’m looking at putting my house up for sale, and I just wanted to check if any of the boys were looking for somewhere before I did that? Might be able to pass it on at a lower rate.”

“I’ll have an ask around and get back to you,” Chris nods, clapping him on the shoulder. “Good luck with that, mate – and give my best to Owen.”

“Of course,” Dylan agrees immediately, even as he tries to ignore the thought that he’s heard the same said with regard to his teammates’ wives before; undoubtedly, Owen gets the same about him, and it really doesn’t mean anything more than that they’re partners in a loving, domestic relationship.

As he starts the journey home, memories rise unbidden of Owen’s frustration with him a year ago over feeling like Dylan was treating him like a woman. Was he unfair to dismiss those insecurities so easily? It’s undeniable that Owen faces more abuse from fans over his sexuality, and a lot of that _does_ centre around his masculinity, but that’s just because it’s the only kind of insult most people can think of. It’s nothing to do with any sort of impression either of them gives about their internal relationship dynamic.

Or maybe, as Owen said at the time, Dylan’s just so accustomed to dating women that such a behaviour pattern is ingrained into him. It’s not like he ever really examined his behaviour or considered changing it; he just told Owen to change and to accept his own views, and maybe, even that was adding to the view that others seem to have of Owen as somehow less masculine between the two of them.

It’s really no use questioning any of this, just as there’s no use getting insecure about the age gap. Yes, Dylan’s older by a fair few years. Yes, he’s retired while Owen’s in the prime of his career – still improving, even – but that was through injury, and these things happen. As a Forward, he would always have been more prone to an early retirement than Owen’s comparatively comfortable career wearing 10 or 12 – not that he’s undermining the work Owen’s put in – and actually, what if that contributes to everyone’s assumptions? The stereotypes about Forwards and Backs _are_ jokes, but all the same, they are there, a part of the everyday rugby culture, and maybe that’s just another factor in people profiling their relationship a certain way.

Perhaps the best thing to do would be to sit down and talk to Owen about this, but he’s not sure he really wants to dredge up those issues again; it wouldn’t help them at all to end up where they were last year. At the moment, they need to get their feet on the ground, sort out housing and where they are in this relationship, and the last thing Dylan wants is to give Owen another reminder of how much more he’s having to put into this than Dylan. Owen’s the one dealing with the most shit, Owen’s the one with the major source of income – and the one who’s punching _below_ his weight. Dylan’s no fool; he knows he’s not the most attractive man, and really, the five-years-older thing isn’t helping at all with that, never mind that Dylan’s had to learn how to make Owen feel good from scratch, and maybe he’s applied too much of his experience with women to that as well?

Fuck, now is _not_ the time for a major crisis over his relationship. It’s stable, it’s loving, and he just has to trust that if Owen had a problem, he’d say something.

Who’s Dylan kidding? He knows there’s something that Owen isn’t saying at the moment, in the small, uncertain pauses that litter their conversations whenever Dylan’s retirement comes up, the twist in Owen’s lips as he chews at them anxiously in an action that used to get to Dylan every time – and still does, if he’s quite honest, but these days, he tries not to act on it so often, because Owen’s probably tired from the training he’s still pushing through, unlike Dylan. The last thing Owen needs is more activity to wear him down, especially when Dylan’s knee means that Owen often has to put more work in than he otherwise would. What if even that’s an echo of Dylan unconsciously treating him as female?

At any rate, something’s up with Owen, and Dylan doesn’t feel comfortable starting a conversation about these things until he knows where he stands in this relationship at the moment.

Owen wakes slowly on his rest day, just like always in the winter – as though he’s having to drag himself reluctantly out from under the comfortable blanket of sleep, away from the excuse to cling to Dylan like an oversized pillow. Dylan appreciates the experience in silence, stroking lightly through his boyfriend’s hair as Owen emits a drowsy noise of protest and tries to press his face further still into Dylan’s chest. They rarely spoon, these days, so much as Owen drapes himself half across Dylan’s body, preferring to sleep on his front while Dylan is more partial to his back, but Dylan isn’t complaining, because not only does it allow Owen to detangle himself quickly and almost unnoticeably early in the morning but, on days like this, Dylan has an excuse not to move while he waits for Owen’s eyes to blink hazily open.

If he could have this every day, he would, and the thought seems almost selfish, because it is essentially akin to wishing that Owen would retire from rugby, but there’s an undeniable appeal to waking up every morning with Owen a secondary blanket over his bare chest, peaceful in a way that he rarely seems to be over the rest of the day. Dylan would give anything – everything – to at least maintain this as a regular part of their week.

“Morning, Dyl,” Owen slurs finally without moving other than to snuggle impossibly closer, seemingly trying to leech all the comfort he can possibly get from Dylan’s body. “You wanna…”

A large yawn splits his speech, his jaw clicking shut only after several seconds as he blinks as if to clear his head, and Dylan waits patiently, hand not stilling in its light ruffling of Owen’s softly-mussed bedhead.

“You wanna go for a walk today?” Owen mumbles after a while, apparently having remembered what he wanted to say before, and Dylan can’t help his soft smile.

“Sounds good, love,” he assures, and Owen’s eyes flicker up to meet his, that beautifully bright smile stretching those lips to steal Dylan’s breath just like it does every single time.

God, he doesn’t deserve this, but he’ll take it for as long as Owen will have him – and now certainly isn’t the time to be thinking about this, when Owen’s right here, impossibly _his_. (He’s fallen for one man in his entire time on this planet, and it doesn’t seem possible that said man would requite those feelings.)

“You alright?” Owen asks, that smile shuttering off, and Dylan curses himself immediately for letting his internal thoughts slip onto his face – for chasing away the happiness from Owen’s own features.

“Fine,” he assures, forcing a smile of his own as he strokes through Owen’s hair one last time before dropping his hand.

For a moment, Owen eyes him, appearing on the verge of saying something, then the younger man looks away, biting his lip, and nods instead.

“You’d tell me?” comes the quiet, almost cautious check. “If something was wrong?”

There’s nothing wrong; Dylan has Owen, and that’s really all he could possibly ask for. It’s really not that there’s anything wrong, so much as Dylan knows it’s unlikely to stay that way.

“Yeah,” he confirms quietly, and Owen relaxes, a fainter version of his previous beam returning for a second before, with a sigh, he pushes away from Dylan’s chest to slip out of bed and stretch, groaning as he does so. “Time for breakfast, is it?”

“No, I just felt like dragging myself away from our bed for no reason,” Owen throws over his shoulder, sarcastic tone doing nothing to mute the thrill that rushes through Dylan with the words, ‘ _our_ bed’.

“Sometimes I’m not sure with you,” he manages to return anyway, Owen laughing softly before turning to dress.

For some time longer, Dylan stays in the fading warmth of their bed, watching Owen finish dressing then head for the door before dropping his head back onto the pillow to blow out a breath. He’s not sure when he started feeling so pessimistic about their relationship, but it was probably somewhere around his official retirement – when he realised that good things really do have to come to an end. It’s not that he didn’t know that he had to stop playing at some point, but somehow, he wasn’t anywhere close to prepared for the reality of the situation, and ever since, he’s found himself strangely isolated from his old friends, lost without any sort of routine or lifestyle guidance, struggling to cope with the pain in his knee and the aches everywhere else, and honestly, it’s been hard. (When it started, Dylan thought it would pass soon enough, and Owen was dealing with the aftermath of both the World Cup and the salary cap affair; bringing it up now just seems like making a big deal out of something that has been and gone.)

At any rate, retirement has brought loneliness, too much time and a realisation that everything will surely only go down from here. His glory days are behind him, his body all but broken in their wake, and he’s losing so much of what he once held dear in his life. Is it really too much to expect that Owen will slip away as well?

All he can do is cling onto it and savour what time he has left, before Owen comes to a realisation of his own: that he has so much more left to do in his life than Dylan, that Dylan is only going to hold him back, that he deserves so much better than what little Dylan can offer him in retirement.

“Dylan?”

Owen peers in, and it’s easy to see that the smile he offers is strained.

“I brought you coffee?” he continues, audibly uncertain, and Dylan glances at the clock to register faintly that he’s stayed in bed for longer than he intended to.

 _Shit_.

“Thanks,” he sighs, sitting up to take the mug that Owen holds out and shifting out of the way so that his boyfriend can drop down onto the mattress next to him.

“Do you…” Owen bites his lip, looking away, and Dylan hates to see the awkwardness in the action. “Do you remember what you told me once? About opening up?”

“I told you a lot about that,” Dylan huffs weakly, and Owen’s lips twitch, something anxious in the shift.

“You made it quite clear – _very_ clear – that I shouldn’t bottle up my feelings, because not only would… would _I_ feel worse, but it made you feel like shit, because it was like I was saying I didn’t trust you, and making you feel like there was nothing you could do to help…” Owen coughs, still unable to meet Dylan’s eyes. “So, um, just… If anything _is_ wrong, I want you to be able to talk to me?”

Dylan opens his mouth and says something that he hates himself for even before it comes out, because it’s clear that Owen’s venturing far out of his comfort zone for this, and these words are going to hurt a lot.

“Faz,” he forces a chuckle, nudging Owen with the arm that isn’t supporting a mug of hot coffee, “I know – I told you that, remember? Don’t worry, I’m not coming down with your intimacy issues, alright? Now, where’s this coming from, hmm?”

He already knows that Owen won’t answer that question, fully aware that his boyfriend will be hit too hard by his earlier words to go out on a limb again, but that doesn’t mean it hurts any less to see the crestfallen mortification that twists Owen’s face, accompanied by several rapid blinks.

“I – I don’t know,” Owen stammers, swallowing visibly as his cheeks flush red and his eyes drop, his hands clenching; Dylan’s stomach mirrors the action. “I just thought… Just in case, maybe.”

“I’m fine,” Dylan assures him, pressing amusement into his tone, and Owen nods jerkily, then stands with a deep breath.

“I think… Ron’s getting a bit impatient, so if you’re ready to go in the next ten minutes or so…? Otherwise, I’ll take him out by myself.”

He flees without waiting for Dylan’s answer, the door swinging in his wake to bounce against the wall and waver back, drifting to somewhere halfway between open and closed. Dylan has never been so sickened by himself in his life, as much as he’s sure that discussing this with Owen is the last thing either of them needs right now – or maybe it’s just the last thing _he_ needs, if he wants to keep this going for as long as he can, and this is just one more way he’s hurting Owen on that road.

The front door opens and closes downstairs while he’s still sat in bed, nursing his gradually cooling coffee and staring blankly at its lifeless bedroom counterpart.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, everyone! (And new decade too, of course!)
> 
> Hope you've all been looking after yourself/drinking responsibly/knowing your physical and emotional limits and respecting them/etc.
> 
> But fuck, that Exeter game was *painful*... Not sure I really like this new trend of doctors/water carriers/players on the bench getting involved in scuffles, y'know? Like, save it for the people who can get each other back with a legal tackle, and can be sanctioned immediately if they do anything inappropriate. At least Dr Kearns has been disciplined.
> 
> Quick warning: some discussion past unhealthy relationships in this, so... Yeah. Hope you enjoy, at any rate:

They descend in a storm of sharp words and sharper blows, thrown back and forth from one to the other until Owen’s long-since lost track of who started what or why they’re even fighting anymore. The insults sting, the hands even more so, and he gives as good as he gets even as something in the back of his head screams that they need to stop, take a step back, and this is too much; they’ve moved too quickly, pushed themselves over the edge by rushing, and if they could just slow down, they’ll be alright, but this is the story of their relationship – of every relationship – and Owen’s stuck on a fine line between too much and too little, never sure who wants what from him until they’re screaming in his face that he should have given it to them sooner. He can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t speak, and it’s all bearing down on him, crushing him under the weight of too many voices, remembered insults ringing through his ears as he struggles for balance or anything to cling to if he’s to stand a chance of surviving this bombardment.

Consciousness comes slamming in with the ricochet of yet another screamed slur off the inside of his skull, his eyes flying open as his muscles seize, and for some time, he lies silent and still, back prickling with hot and cold and sweat as his heart thunders against Dylan’s chest. Eventually, he finds it within himself to move, slipping cautiously away from his boyfriend and, when the anxiety levels have dropped enough that he feels safe to do so, out from beneath the duvet, padding through the darkness that clouds his bedroom to find the bathroom and flick on the light there, the door closed softly behind himself.

His first port of call is the sink to splash his face, trying to calm the remaining shakiness in his limbs as he attempts to pretend that he doesn’t know exactly where that nightmare came from. Was moving in together a step too far, too soon? Is Dylan moving on from Owen just as he’s moving on from rugby, closing one chapter entirely to open another? He doesn’t know, but the last few days have been unsettled all the same; it’s all too obvious that something is wrong, and Dylan doesn’t want to share.

Or maybe Owen really did misread the signs. Maybe Dylan’s fine, and it’s all in Owen’s head, and he’s fucking up this relationship with some kind of paranoid delusion, which would be a new one for him only in the _how_ ; he’s fucked up many a relationship in his time.

Honestly, his relationship history is probably something he should have discussed with Dylan at some point, but beyond the ‘you’re clean, I’m clean’ trade of sexual history two years ago, it’s never really come into conversation, and Owen doesn’t really see it as something that can just be brought up.

The truth is, Owen’s love-life has been a mess for as long as he can remember, and his teammates will all attest to that if asked. Everyone he’s ever dated has wanted something from him that he hasn’t been able to give: more intimacy, or less; privacy and lack of scrutiny or complete openness with the world about who he is; less dominant inclinations or more, because “You’re meant to be a fucking rugby player, Owen, and you don’t even have the balls to get rough – the fuck is wrong with you?”

Brad once commented that maybe, Owen’s simply attracted to men who will treat him badly. Owen likes to think of it as a joke, but sometimes, he wonders about the truth of that statement, whether his desire for discipline and drive for perfection lead him to search for the most demanding of men, or even whether it’s part of some fucked up complex borne of the time when he almost hated himself for being gay, a way to punish himself for it that he’s never quite managed to shake.

It doesn’t really matter, in the end, because as hard as he tries, there’s always something he’s lacking – and maybe they’re lacking more, sometimes, but that doesn’t matter to them, does it? Then comes the shoving, the shouts growing louder, something broken – always something broken, shattering on the floor, be it a vase, a mug or what remains of Owen’s pride – until one of them leaves, normally Owen, fleeing not to his own house but to Jamie’s or George’s, to knock desperately on his friend’s door and stumble through when they answer, waiting for them to pick up the pieces left behind from another ruined relationship.

He knows that his teammates disapprove of his dating habits, knows that they dread both the ‘on’ – long stretches of man after man, not one of them liked, if Owen even dares make introductions in the first place – and the ‘off’ – if only because the start of such a lonely stint comes with an ending bad enough to have Owen too wary to fall into his usual pattern of finding someone else to fill the hole in his life – and that every single time, they’ll be there to help him off the floor again.

Is it too much to ask that he doesn’t want them to need to at the moment? That he wants this one to _work_ , more than any other relationship in his life?

There’s no denying that Dylan’s pulling away at the moment, but until Owen can work out what Dylan wants from him, there’s nothing he can do about it. All there is for him is to keep trying and hope that the realisation doesn’t come when Dylan’s yelling at him from across the room that he simply isn’t good enough.

Is it too much to ask that he doesn’t end up curled under Jamie’s arm on his friend’s couch while Katie hovers awkwardly in the background this month or next, crying his eyes out for seemingly hours on end like he did at the end of all of his other _actually meaningful_ relationships – and some others besides?

Maybe, if they can keep themselves ticking over for a few more weeks, Christmas Day in Ireland with Owen’s family will help them settle. Maybe, though, Dylan really needs to see his _own_ family, who they don’t have plans to visit at all this year – Dylan’s planning, not Owen’s, but shit, Owen hopes that Dylan isn’t internally bitter about that.

“Owen?”

Twisting, he blinks at the sight of Dylan framed against the still-dark bedroom and quickly tries to compose himself, because he’s not sure now is the right time to be getting into everything going on in his head – not while Dylan’s still half-asleep and Owen’s sleep-deprived.

“Hey,” he manages, tagging a weak smile alongside the simple greeting, and Dylan slumps a little, but returns the smile.

“What’re you doing up?”

Hesitating, Owen glances away, towards the mirror, and is surprised to find his eyes red-rimmed and swollen; he looks for all the world like he’s been crying for some time.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he offers, unsure what else to say, and catches the nod of Dylan’s reflection. “You… You know I love you, right?”

He doesn’t know why he tags those words on, but it feels important to do so, and for a brief second, Dylan’s smile almost appears genuine, but maybe that’s just a trick of the light.

“I love you too,” comes the soft reply, and Owen tries not to feel disconcerted that his question hasn’t actually been answered; returning the sentiment is a common enough response, and of course Dylan knows it.

If nothing else, Owen’s just said it.

After the other day, he doesn’t feel like making a big deal out of checking.

“Come on,” Dylan steps forward, arms slipping around him as a chin settles on his shoulder. “Back to bed, yeah?”

Slowly, Owen nods and lets Dylan lead him from the bathroom, leaning back in only to switch off the light before slipping under the covers once more and resettling himself on Dylan’s chest, one of his boyfriend’s arms draping itself over his shoulders.

“You know…” Dylan starts, then trails off, silence falling throughout the house for several seconds. “If you can’t sleep for some reason… You _can_ wake me up.”

Nodding, Owen shifts into a slightly more comfortable position, settling only when he’s found exactly the right spot to rest his head.

“I know,” he murmurs, struggling for another reason to give besides that he didn’t want to talk about it with Dylan at three in the morning. “I was fine. I just…”

Shrugging, he falls silent and closes his eyes, relieved when Dylan lets it be. If any other words are exchanged, he drifts off too quickly to remember them.

There’s no time to discuss the night before in the morning; Owen has a game to play, and Dylan made the decision quite firmly to make the trip over to Ireland on the day of Saints’ game and only stay over with Owen’s parents for the next night, but it means that, by the time Owen’s up, he’s practically out of the door, farewells hurried through before Owen’s alone in the house with less sleep than he’d have liked pre-game. It feels strangely empty without his boyfriend around, but then again, it’s been going that way for the last week at least, probably more. Honestly, Owen’s really not sure how to feel about it.

At any rate, he has a game to play – to captain, even – and now’s not the time to be dwelling on matters external to rugby. Working out what he’s going to do about the tension growing between him and Dylan can wait for this evening.

Throughout the day, he manages to compartmentalise well, pushing Dylan away from the front of his thoughts and eventually losing those worries to the back of his mind to focus on his team and the game he loves instead. It’s good to get the win, but _fuck_ , if he isn’t pissed off about that fight, because backroom staff have no business getting involved in the game, never mind saying shit like that to Owen’s greatest friend, and Munster getting a fucking _penalty_ out of Owen running in with _every single other player on the fucking field_ is just taking the piss, never mind the potential implications for the game.

It’s only on getting home to his almost silent house to be greeted by Ronnie far more eagerly than he’s grown used to – Dylan’s presence throughout the day normally calms the dog’s reactions – that he remembers his other problems, the weight of his fears for the both of them sinking back in to hunch his shoulders and bow his head. There has to be something that’s going on, surely? Something _must_ be up with Dylan, because these issues can’t have just come out of nowhere, but Dylan’s hardly the sort to hide his feelings – and he _did_ assure Owen that everything was fine.

Perhaps he could text his dad, ask for his parents to see if they can get anything from Dylan, but that means not only admitting that they’re struggling, but that Owen himself can’t coax Dylan into communicating. But is he really willing to pass up on any chance he might have for what? His _pride_?

No, he isn’t, but honestly, he doubts that his parents will get anywhere with Dylan, and they could well make the older man close off more. It’s not worth the risk.

Really, it’s not that bad. So there’s a lack of communication at the moment; all Owen has to do is _ensure_ that they sit down and talk. He can do that. When Dylan gets home, he can sit his boyfriend down, make it clear that he knows _something_ is up, and press until Dylan tells him what’s going on.

Only, Owen knows from experience in the reverse situation that doing so won’t always work. Sometimes, things got so much worse – and yes, they got better eventually, but there seems to be so much more at stake, so much more he’d be risking, and Owen doesn’t want to go back to where they were during the Autumn Internationals last year. Dylan wouldn’t have anything to distract himself with and take his frustrations out on anymore, and they wouldn’t be able to escape from each other enough to cool down and sort it all out with level heads.

Eventually, he registers that he should stop pacing in his kitchen and sort out something to eat then sit. Slowly, he starts work on dinner, finding the ingredients he needs as his thoughts continue to spin, whirling through his head incessantly.

If Dylan’s really looking to move on, then talking could be the event that triggers it, but the last thing Owen wants to do is make assumptions which could put them in even worse a position – only sometimes, all you can do is try to anticipate others’ actions and hope for the best.

So say he doesn’t try to talk it out – what then? He just sits and watches the slow decline of the best relationship he’s ever had, just because he was too scared to risk it? Just when everything’s going better than ever, he’d let it slide through his fingers because he doesn’t want to take a chance? Dylan admitting to being interested in him was a risk. Talking to Dylan two years into their relationship is _not_ ; Owen refuses to let it be.

Resolve hardened, he turns his focus entirely to cooking as Ronnie noses at his calves, clearly searching for any scraps that Owen’s feeling generous enough to offer, the outline of a plan settled firmly in his mind. When Dylan gets home, he’ll give his boyfriend time to rest from the journey, then he’ll sit down and make sure that the conversation that they need actually happens.

Ronnie slinks away after five minutes, a very satisfied dog indeed.

Making the decision and carrying it out, Owen finds very quickly, are two entirely different things off the pitch as well as on. Every time he opens his mouth, he can’t help but remember how wrong he was last time, the thought of embarrassing himself like that again staying his tongue – but he’s done much worse around Dylan, really; it’s not exactly going to make any difference to how Dylan views him, is it?

“Dylan,” he manages finally, a good two hours after Dylan arrived home, and doesn’t wait for his boyfriend to acknowledge him before hurrying on. “We need to talk.”

Slowly, Dylan lifts his head, frowning. The reluctance in the action is obvious, the crease in his brow deepening with each passing beat of silence.

“I know something’s up,” Owen pushes ahead despite the twist in his stomach. “Clearly, you don’t want to talk to me about it, but…”

He’s not sure what to continue with, and Dylan sighs.

“But what, Owen?” he asks tiredly, the weariness in his voice taking Owen by surprise. “I thought you didn’t like talking about feelings.”

“I’ve changed,” Owen manages after several seconds, recovered from the shock of the exhaustion Dylan’s showing. “Because of _you_.”

And Dylan well knows it.

“Really?” Dylan leans back into the armchair he’s settled himself in, eyebrows rising. “Which is why you were so eager to talk the other night, is it?”

“We were both tired,” Owen points out, which is hardly unreasonable. “It was the middle of the night – if we’d had time in the morning –”

“And I’m tired now,” Dylan returns. “Or does it only count when _you_ don’t feel like it?”

“I…” Owen struggles for a response and comes up short for too long, Dylan’s attention turning back to his phone. “Well, you’ll let me know when you feel up for it, then?”

“Sure,” Dylan agrees, apparently disinterested, and Owen can only sink back against the cushions of the couch, unsure exactly how Dylan managed to dismantle his attempt at talking so quickly and easily.

Silence reigns on, and Owen considers getting his own phone out, but that feels like giving up, and he doesn’t actually have any reason to look at it at the moment anyway.

“If you’re tired, why don’t you go to bed?” he manages eventually, and Dylan drops his phone with a loud, frustrated breath, eyes flicking over to Owen in clear irritation.

“Passive-aggressive comments, really?” the older man asks pointedly. “Maybe Luther was right.”

_What?_

“Luther?” Owen echoes, confused. “Burrell? What did he say?”

He gets the feeling that he doesn’t actually want to know, and Dylan’s expression – obvious regret, a hint of guilt and shame – agrees with the sentiment, but all the same, Dylan draws in a deep lungful of air and stands, fixing Owen with an unreadable stare as he speaks.

“He thought you were the woman in this,” is all Owen gets before Dylan’s gone, his ringing ears identifying that Dylan is making his way upstairs.

“Clearly doesn’t want to talk,” he huffs quietly to the room at large, forcing a smile to push down the hurt and pretend that old insecurities aren’t rising yet again.

He isn’t the woman in this, and neither is Dylan; they’re too adult, consenting men, and they don’t need to fit into the mould of a heterosexual relationship, no matter what label Dylan might still apply to his sexuality or whatever disgruntled opposing fans have to say.

Unfortunately, it appears that there is one weakness in removing your insecurities with the help of someone else; that someone else can always slide the doubts neatly back into place. The thought that Dylan’s been having these conversations with his teammates, behind Owen’s back, doesn’t help either – and certainly, the idea that Dylan himself might think it is nothing but nauseating.

They’re getting closer to last year by the day, it seems, even as they creep on towards 2020.

Owen is no less masculine than Dylan in this relationship – but maybe that’s not what Dylan wants? Dylan _does_ , after all, still identify as straight, and maybe, as time moves on, the novelty of a man has worn off; maybe he’s trying to make this work by fitting Owen into a box compatible with his sexuality?

Owen’s not sure which is worse: the thought of having to meet those standards and expectations, or of losing Dylan altogether when they’re really starting to build something. Every other relationship he’s had has ended with him being in some way inadequate, and he doesn’t want this to go the same way, when he’s so far from ready to let it all go. They’ve got a good thing going, and he doesn’t want to give up on that so easily.

Slowly, he drops his head into his hands, trying to work out what he’s going to do about this, and comes up with nothing. This is the second time he’s tried to talk, the second time Dylan’s come back at him with a cutting insult – Owen’s starting to suspect that the first time was as deliberate as the second – and he doesn’t really fancy making it a third any time soon.

He’ll have to work out what Dylan wants a different way, then – without direct communication on his side.

“I’m sorry,” Dylan mutters when Owen finally follows him up to the bedroom. “That was uncalled for.”

Owen nods, already fairly sure that he doesn’t want to hear any more on the matter right now and risk finding out whether or not Dylan actually agrees with what he said. As much as it might help him to know, if he’s going to salvage their relationship without having a more open and honest discussion, he’s not sure he could handle hearing from Dylan himself that his own boyfriend is questioning his masculinity.

“It’s fine,” he brushes it aside, already stepping closer as Dylan watches him with what appears to be some kind of combination of guilt and sorrow.

Time to change that, then.

“Ron needs a walk,” he tells his boyfriend, “And honestly, my legs are shot right now – any chance you could…?”

To Owen’s relief, Dylan seems to jump at the opportunity, halfway to the door before he’s even finished his agreement. Owen waits in silence, not moving from where he stands, caught awkwardly between one breath and the next since Dylan brushed past him and seemed to almost stop for a kiss but didn’t, until Ronnie’s happy barking is cut off by the closing of the door. Ronnie’s already had a walk, because Owen took him out earlier in the morning like he always does, and Owen has no doubt that the only reason Dylan didn’t question his request was because Dylan was too happy to take the excuse to escape for a while.

It doesn’t bode well for their relationship, but it leaves Owen alone in the house for a while – long enough to do what he has to do, if he wants to work out what’s going on in Dylan’s head.

_The only question_ , he thinks as he stares at Dylan’s belongings tucked neatly around their bedroom, _Is where to start?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Er... Communication is key? Like, *really* key? And don't deliberately use your partner(s)'s insecurities to win arguments; that's not cool. Also, Owen's relationship history is not - and I repeat, NOT - a good model to base your own relationships off. Hopefully that doesn't really NEED saying, but just in case...
> 
> Oh, and don't look through your partner(s)'s stuff. Not cool either.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 62-5. I'm sorry, but _62-5_??? Maybe a little pissed after the Exeter game and Nigel stepping down, hmm?
> 
> Anyway, I'll keep this short, but before I leave you to it:  
> Warning for discussion of past unhealthy relationships towards the end. Otherwise, hope you enjoy!

It doesn’t take much deliberation for Dylan to decide not to comment on why some of his belongings have been rearranged when he returns from his strangely convenient trip out with Ronnie, which he has no doubt Owen made up on the spot. If Owen wants to look through his things, he can go ahead; calling him out on it would just open up another can of worms that Dylan is far from prepared to deal with at the moment. At least, he supposes, the fresh air cleared his head a little after that argument.

He shouldn’t have said those things to Owen. He knows that. It was foolish, spiteful, and it certainly didn’t help his cause any. All the same, as he bites his lip on the falsely casual remark that he wants to make about how sure he is that he put his phone _there_ before he left, not _here_ , there’s a small voice in the back of his head that’s almost starting to agree with Luther’s comments. Owen _is_ acting like an overbearing girlfriend at the moment, going through Dylan’s belongings and making little sarcastic comments, pushing Dylan to talk.

That’s not fair, though. Dylan is the one who normally promotes communication, and everything Owen’s tried to push for lately, he’s learnt from Dylan himself. Clearly, Owen’s not happy with the way things are if he feels the need to start looking through Dylan’s _clothes_ after sending Dylan on an impromptu outing; he shouldn’t have done it, but he shouldn’t have felt like he needed to, either.

Looking at Owen now, sat on the edge of the mattress with his lip practically bitten raw, his gaze unfocused and distant, it’s clear that, whatever the younger man was looking for, he didn’t find it. Dylan isn’t sure if he should be satisfied by that or not, but a large part of him rebels against seeing Owen so despondent, and he finds himself dropping down beside Owen to sit in silence next to his boyfriend.

Owen barely even glances his way.

A few weeks ago, Owen would have leaned into his touch, and it stings to see Owen so against seeking the comfort from Dylan that he appears to need, but that’s probably Dylan’s fault for pushing him away lately. That, or it’s just another sign of Owen wanting out of this relationship himself, because Dylan’s already taking so much more out of this than he’s putting in, and it’s really only a matter of time before Owen calls it quits and moves on to something better, particularly now that Dylan’s taken it upon himself to insult Owen’s masculinity directly.

He literally couldn’t have picked anything worse to say in this situation.

_Fuck._

Maybe, not talking isn’t the way out of this. Maybe, it’s just accelerating the decline of their relationship.

Maybe, it’s doomed either way.

Eventually, Owen stands, mumbling something about post-match analysis and trudging from the room to leave Dylan sat in silence, starting to wonder if his own insecurities haven’t become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If there’s one real benefit of that walk, it’s that he’s had time to dwell on the flaws in his logic without being able to wallow in self-pity as normal; Ronnie didn’t allow for that. Now, having returned to Owen again, the reality of the situation is sinking gradually in, grounding itself properly in his head. They’re moving in together, and he thought that their relationship was about to end? Yes, he suggested that – and marriage – but Owen didn’t even hesitate, and it was his boyfriend who brought up the idea of children.

Even the doubts about Owen feeling like he could get better elsewhere don’t really make sense; he’s Owen’s _type_ , for fuck’s sake.

The problem is, there may not have been any issues originally, but there certainly are now, and Dylan’s definitely the one at fault. He just had to start getting paranoid and closing off, making assumptions and letting others’ words affect him. That’s on him – and it’s up to him to make up for it.

He’s just not sure _how_.

It could well be too late to salvage any of it.

Dylan barely sees Owen throughout the rest of the day, and when he does, over meals and when they both happen to end up in the same room, silence pervades every moment. Owen, it seems, has given up trying to talk, sitting with a crease in his brow as he stares off into the distance and picks at his food or fiddles with his phone, and Dylan can only watch out of the corner of his eye, wondering when he lost sight of everything that he’s tried to encourage Owen to get more comfortable with, and when he let that hurt them both.

The one reprieve is that night, when Owen, after a brief hesitation, settles himself against Dylan’s chest like normal, head tucked under Dylan’s chin; Dylan makes a point of wrapping his arms securely around Owen, holding him close and kissing the top of his head. If he can’t find the words and still isn’t sure that he’s ready to use them, then there are other ways he can try to assure both himself and Owen that he still loves the younger man.

Unfortunately, several hours later, he wakes with Owen gone, faint light seeping under the doorframe, and it’s impossible to ignore Owen’s ragged pants in the otherwise noiseless house. Briefly, Dylan considers slipping out of bed to see if there’s anything he can do, but decides against it. If Owen doesn’t want to talk about it, Dylan’s hardly in any position at the moment to try and make him.

Eventually, Owen returns, slipping back under the covers without seeming to realise that Dylan is awake himself and curling up on his side to blow out a soft, shaky breath. Dylan itches to reach out, to comfort him and find out what’s going on in that beautiful head of his, but something stays his hand, creeping insecurities returning to leave him uncertain whether or not Owen would welcome that sort of support or reject him outright.

In the morning, Owen’s off to training, and Dylan’s alone once more. He occupies his time by taking Ronnie for a walk, working through admin and contact with sponsors, and trying to work out what to do with his newfound clarity whenever he has a free moment – moments which then inevitably stretch on into long sessions of sitting and contemplating the opposite wall in _their_ living room as he tries to examine the situation from both his perspective and Owen’s.

The reality is, he has little idea of what Owen is feeling at the moment. Yes, he knows that he’s said some hurtful things, and that Owen has tried to talk to him but backed off, presumably for fear of Dylan shooting him down again, but what about all the times before that, when he seemed to be about to say something but didn’t, when he got all quiet whenever Dylan’s retirement came up or steered the conversation elsewhere? That was always, admittedly, what Dylan had been planning to do at those times, but why would Owen?

Then, of course, there’s the nightmares – which is what Dylan assumes has woken his boyfriend up in the middle of at least two of the last three nights. Is it simply the stress that’s bringing them out? Are they somehow more connected than that? Dylan can’t imagine what Owen could be having _nightmares_ about, but then, when the body’s anxiety response gets going, anything can turn into a nightmare, he supposes.

It’s something that he won’t know for certain without talking to Owen, but how to bring it up? Owen seemed desperate to avoid talking about it the first time – Dylan won’t deny that it stung when Owen outright pretended not to have been crying, despite the swollen, puffy eyes – and given how Owen curled away from him last night, after not waking him again, Dylan’s not sure how well it will go down. If Dylan has somehow managed to completely drive away Owen’s willingness to talk about things that bother him – a willingness that Dylan himself took a good year to make a breakthrough on with his boyfriend – then it will probably be even worse.

In the end, he gets nowhere. Owen comes home and they barely speak; Dylan sits in the living room and stares blankly at his phone while Owen cooks dinner; they sit in silence through the meal and only when they go to bed several hours later does Dylan wrap his arms around Owen for the first time since last night. The relief of having a good portion of Owen’s bodyweight on top of his is indescribable, but it doesn’t feel like enough.

Dylan wakes to Owen scrambling away from him, panicked gasps puncturing the silence, and with his mind still coated in cobwebs of sleep, he does the first thing that comes to him: reaching out, he pulls Owen back towards him, wrapping his arms more securely around the younger man and kissing Owen’s hair gently.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ is on the tip of his tongue, but it only stays there for several minutes as Owen starts to calm before the words are swallowed entirely alongside everything else that Dylan wants to say. Instead, he settles for holding Owen in silence until they both drift back off.

By the time he wakes up, Owen has already left for training.

Maybe, Dylan thinks absently as he wanders out of the house with Ronnie on his heels and turns to lock the door, it would help if they actually had sex for the first time in about a fortnight. Then again, sex isn’t really the sort of thing to do when you’re barely talking.

Scratch that idea, then.

Although Owen tucks his head under Dylan’s chin as ever, he feels distinctly further away that night, their legs not tangled and Dylan’s chest strangely free of any extra weight pressing down on it. The next morning, Dylan holds out a hope that Owen simply got through the night fine, but the dark shadows under Owen’s eyes say otherwise, and the knowledge that Dylan slept through it is like a punch to the gut.

_Fuck_.

Owen’s in the kitchen that evening, cooking whatever it is that he feels like making for dinner – they don’t even talk about that anymore – when Dylan decides that enough is enough. He’s shied away from this for too long, spending too much time creeping around and keeping his mouth shut, and it’s time they talked. However this ends, it’s not doing either of them any favours to keep up _this_ , and Dylan hates, more than anything, to see Owen so miserable and know that he’s the cause.

On the verge of entering the kitchen, Owen’s voice has him stilling.

“…just don’t know what to do,” his boyfriend mutters, quiet and defeated, clearly trying to keep his words from carrying. “He’s hurting, I know he is, but I just… He won’t talk to me, and I feel like – I think he’s getting tired of – of something, I don’t know, it’s just… I mean, I thought he just wasn’t ready to talk about it, but then it seemed like it was all getting worse, so I thought maybe he just needed me to bring it up, but that – It didn’t work…”

Owen’s speech cracks a little, then, and Dylan’s heart mirrors it. It more than didn’t work; Dylan shot him down completely. Owen must be talking to someone on the phone, Dylan would guess, but he’s not entirely sure who, and barging in just doesn’t seem right, but as much as he grew up learning not to eavesdrop, he can’t pull himself away.

“Yeah, well, I did that,” Owen bites out suddenly, frustration marring his tone. “And that didn’t work either. That’s why I’m asking you, isn’t it? I just want to know if he said anything last weekend. That’s _all_.”

Last weekend suggests that it’s one of Owen’s parents, Dylan decides, and he’d wager that it’s Andy. Even regardless of Owen’s incredibly close relationship with his father, Dylan can’t imagine him speaking to his mother like that.

“Nothing?” Owen murmurs, apparently defeated. “Shit… I don’t know what else to do, Dad. I’ve tried talking to him, I’ve tried seeing if I can just work out what’s going on – it can’t just be the retirement, right? I mean, I know he’s been finding it tough, but… I just – What if he wants to move on? You know, just a completely fresh start – I _know_ , but…”

Owen blows out an audibly frustrated breath, and Dylan decides that he’s heard more than enough. The sheer thought of _him_ wanting to move on from Owen is honestly ridiculous, and it’s only after an incredulous, entirely humourless smile has spread across his face that he realises how similar Owen’s worries sound to his own.

Well, now’s surely as good a time as ever for that conversation.

Despite the conviction that he’s just about managed to muster, it’s with a cautious hand that Dylan nudges the door open and slips in to find Owen staring at the chopping board before him, knife in a white-knuckled grip as though he’s fighting the urge to stab the meat he’s in the middle of preparing. His phone is tucked between his ear and his shoulder, his jaw tight, and Dylan finds himself settling back against the doorframe to watch in silence as his boyfriend sighs.

“I already told you I tried that,” Owen mutters finally, slumping a little. “Look, maybe at Christmas? He respects you, he might – Yeah, I know he does. Dad, I know he – he respects me. That’s not – That’s not what I…”

Dylan has to close his eyes, because Owen doesn’t even sound convinced about that. This is why he works so hard not to bottle up his emotions; Owen tends to inwardly self-destruct and hurt people indirectly, only going on the offensive when it gets particularly bad, but Dylan’s go-to defence mechanism is to lash out at anyone who gets too close, and now Owen’s paying the price for insecurities that, listening to Owen now, it’s clear were founded on nothing.

Yes, Dylan knows that he can’t blame himself entirely for having those doubts, but why couldn’t he have thought more rationally about it sooner? Why did he have to let himself wallow in all that pain and drag Owen down with him?

Owen’s still floundering, trying to explain whatever he thinks he meant, sounding increasingly lost as he does so, and Dylan can’t listen to this anymore. He came in here for a reason.

Gathering his courage, he steels himself and clears his throat, watching Owen stiffen; every single muscle seems to go rigid in that second, as Owen stops mid-sentence, then slowly, painstakingly, turns to meet Dylan’s gaze.

“Er…” he manages, and Dylan waits patiently while he visibly works his way through the situation, uncertainty and apprehension twisting on his face. “Actually, I’ll call you back. I, um… I’ve got to… Love you, Dad. …Yeah, bye.”

The silence that fills the room as Owen hangs up and sets his phone aside is uncomfortably familiar, and Dylan struggles for something to fill it quickly.

“I do respect you, you know,” is all he can think to offer at first, quiet and solemn, and Owen’s flush is painful. “I think… I’m awake enough for that talk. If you are.”

“I…” Owen hesitates, glancing briefly at the beginnings of dinner, then nods and turns the cooker off. “Sounds – Sounds good. You… Er, you want to start?”

The simplicity of it all is almost breath-taking, and for a moment, Dylan can only nod in silence.

“Yeah,” he agrees when his voice returns, reaching over to pull out a chair and sit, then has to scrub his face roughly before he can say any more. “Owen… I’m sorry. For how I’ve treated you lately. I had all these thoughts and doubts in my head, and I stupidly decided to bottle it all up…”

Silent, Owen nods, and Dylan wonders faintly when their roles seemed to swap.

“Lately, I…”

Biting his lip, he considers how to express it. He knows exactly what he wants to tell Owen, but saying it directly seems like too much. Then again, it’s really what’s needed at the moment.

“I haven’t felt good enough for you lately,” he confesses, brushing over the surprise that invades Owen’s face for the time being. “Partly because of retirement – I feel old, useless…”

An uncomfortably bitter laugh slips out before he can stop it.

“It’s only going to get worse for me from here, really. And you’re… You’re young, you’re in your prime, you could do so much better than me, and I just feel like I’m getting too much out compared to what I’m putting in. Then there’s all the people who assume things about you, and you have to put up with so much shit; I keep thinking that it’s only so long until you get tired of that – and I know that’s putting words in your mouth, and I’m sorry for that. But I’ve just been feeling like shit about myself, about everything, and it feels like there’s only so long until you wake up and realise you’ll be better off without me, and I was stupid enough to think talking to you about it would be the thing that set that off, so I decided to let myself spiral and treat you like shit in the meantime. And I’m sorry for that.”

The words spill out faster than he can really keep track of them, until he’s fairly sure that he’s repeated himself at least once, but Owen just stands in silence and listens, lip caught between his teeth.

“And I guess… I’ve just felt like you’re pulling away – but that’s probably because I did first. And I’ve been questioning myself, whether I’ve been treating you unfairly this entire time –”

“What?” Owen interrupts, apparently bewildered. “How do you mean?”

Closing his eyes, Dylan draws in a deep breath and braces himself.

“I’ve been worried that maybe… Last year, you said I was treating you like your girlfriend, and I sort of brushed that aside,” he explains carefully, watching Owen’s brow crease. “I just… I expected you to change, and I _didn’t_ , and I’ve just been questioning if maybe I _have_ been undermining your masculinity or something –”

“But you were _right_ about that,” Owen cuts him off again, lowering himself into a seat to frown in obvious confusion. “Why would you change something you were right about?”

Helpless, Dylan can only throw up his hands.

“Why did I think any of that?” he returns dryly. “We’re literally living together now, and I got it into my head that you wanted out – and apparently made _you_ think _I_ wanted out.”

Owen looks away.

“You heard that?” he mutters.

“Not the whole conversation, but a fair amount,” Dylan admits. “I… Owen, I love you, alright? I’m certainly not about to move on anytime soon – assuming you don’t want to?”

“Of course I don’t!” Owen rushes out immediately. “Dyl, I – I love you too. I just… I knew you were having problems with your retirement, and I thought you weren’t ready to talk about it, but then you started getting worse about it, so I thought I’d try…”

Shoulders hunching in, he turns his face away again.

“You tried to talk about it, and I insulted you,” Dylan fills in quietly, sighing when Owen shrugs. “I didn’t mean that – or the other time. I just… really didn’t want to talk, and I decided picking on your insecurities was the best way to manage that.”

“You were right,” Owen offers, cracking a half-hearted smile, and Dylan’s chest squeezes in at the words and the sight. “But… I don’t want to leave you, anyway. And you haven’t – you haven’t been treating me unfairly. I’m not… _really_ sure how you got that in your head, but…”

Owen draws in a deep breath, then, shaking his head as he does so.

“I feel like… there are things I should tell you about as well,” he continues. “It’s kind of… I maybe haven’t been entirely honest – I haven’t lied!” he hurries out, obviously catching Dylan’s wary frown. “It’s just… I… There are things about my – my relationship history, and it’s not even a big deal or anything, it’s just… I don’t know, it just gets the Sarries lads a bit cautious sometimes – I know I told you once that they get protective because they don’t get to intimidate anyone’s girlfriends, and that _is_ true, but it’s more because… I mean…”

Owen is practically squirming where he sits, unable to meet Dylan’s eyes as he tucks his hands between his thighs, face and neck glowing red, and Dylan can’t decide how worried he should be about this. Owen’s obviously trying to downplay it, but whether that’s because he doesn’t really want to talk about it or he doesn’t want Dylan to be upset about not having heard this earlier, it’s hard to tell.

“It’s alright,” he settles for offering, trying to keep the uncertainty from his tone. “Your relationship history, you said?”

Jerkily, Owen nods.

“The lads don’t really say it outright much,” he mutters, still apparently unable to meet Dylan’s eyes, “But they… they worry about me. And my relationships. Because I don’t have a great track record. Brad – Brad once said maybe I’m just attracted to men who’ll treat me badly.”

Dylan’s barely aware of the choked noise that slips out, but Owen must pick up on it, because his head jerks up at once, eyes widening.

“Not like that!” he assures hurriedly. “Not – It’s not –”

Pulse thundering through his ears, Dylan can only stare at his boyfriend. Is Owen suggesting that he’s been abused? He knows that some studies suggest that domestic violence rates are higher among same-sex relationships, but surely Owen would have said something?

“Not like that,” Owen repeats, firmer this time. “It’s just… Hear me out, alright?”

Blankly, Dylan nods. ‘Not like that’ – like what? There are so many different paths this could take, and Dylan’s not sure he wants to hear any of them, except for Owen’s sake.

“Pretty much every single relationship I’ve had…” Owen sucks in a breath. “They all end the same way. They want something – something I can’t give them, we end up fighting, there’s eventually a huge – a huge shouting match, and sometimes – sometimes punches are thrown, sometimes something’s damaged… And it always ends because I – I wasn’t able to work out what they wanted in time, or I just couldn’t give it to them.”

“What they wanted?” Dylan echoes before he can stop himself, and Owen nods.

“They want me to be out, or they want more privacy, or they want me to be more dominant, or more submissive, or they want to move, they want more of my attention, they get jealous of the Sarries boys…” he lists flatly, lifting a shoulder. “They want more of my money than I’m willing to give them, they want me to be tougher, or they want to be the only ones who see me as anything other than, you know, _Saracens Fly-Half Owen Farrell_ …”

Dylan doesn’t know what to say to this. What _is_ there to say to it?

“And so we break up, and I feel like shit, and I go out and get with someone new to distract myself,” Owen carries on, seemingly unwilling to stop until he has it all out; Dylan can certainly relate to that feeling. “And that keeps happening, and I stop getting my hopes up because that way it hurts less, until one of them is so bad that I actually decide not to date anyone for a while. And then I meet someone and actually get invested again, and it all repeats. And that’s – that’s pretty much my entire history. I was just… I was terrified we were going to go the same way. So I, um… I was trying to work out what you wanted. I… I looked through your things the other day. Sorry.”

“I know,” Dylan manages, brushing the apology aside, then what Owen said right before sinks in. “Wait – you were trying to work out what I wanted? What – What does that mean?”

He’s honestly not sure if he wants to know, because he has a fairly good idea, and he doesn’t like it in the slightest.

“You know…” Owen shrugs. “What I needed to do to get you to stay. Maybe – I thought you might be getting tired of being with a man, so maybe if I tried to be more… more…”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Dylan mutters before he can think better of it, because that’s surely not healthy, and Owen might say that his past relationships weren’t ‘like that’, but if they’ve led to this, they surely can’t be at all _good_.

“Sorry,” Owen repeats, slumping.

Wordless, Dylan shakes his head. Before he opens his mouth and says anything more, he needs to think about this. Objectively, he supposes he knew that Owen’s relationships haven’t all been ideal, but this seems like more than he realised. Maybe they weren’t outright abusive, but Dylan’s willing to bet they left their mark – but then again, all relationships leave a mark. It’s just that some of what Owen said – ‘sometimes punches are thrown’, ‘more submissive’, ‘one of them is so bad I actually decide not to date anyone anymore’ – is leaving a sour taste in his mouth. What does Owen mean, more _submissive_? How bad does it have to be that Owen doesn’t keep going with this insane loop of his?

“The nightmares I’ve been having were to do with that,” Owen starts suddenly, just when Dylan thought it couldn’t get any worse. “Not – Not what I just said. But the past relationships. Because I was – I was worrying about us, I guess.”

Right, Dylan really needs some clarification now – but he needs to do it correctly, and not make this worse.

“So your past relationships have all ended because your boyfriends have been overly demanding,” he begins, because beyond anything, he doesn’t want to feed into the self-blame that he’s pretty sure he’s hearing, “And they often end in a big argument with punches thrown.”

“It’s not always violent,” Owen mutters, looking away. “Just… Yeah, sure.”

“Right, well, they’re bad enough that you have _nightmares_ about them –”

“Not like…” Owen flushes. “Not like that.”

“Like _what_?” Dylan pushes insistently, because there’s only so long that he’ll let Owen duck out of this with that particular line.

“They aren’t, I don’t know, _traumatic_ or anything,” Owen sighs. “I was just stressed, and it came out like that. I already told you, they weren’t _that_ bad.”

“But bad enough that you decided you needed to change who you are to please me?”

Owen, apparently, has nothing to say to that. Dylan can’t find it in himself to be satisfied by his boyfriend’s lack of words, because when he offered to talk however long ago, this was not what he expected to come out of the conversation. Yes, they could get a few things off their chests and settle back down. Finding out that Owen’s relationship history is a damn sight more fucked up than he realised was not on the cards.

“So how bad does it have to be for you to outright swear off dating or whatever?” he settles for asking, immediately on edge when Owen bites his lip and drops his gaze to the floor. “Any examples?”

Slowly, the younger man sucks in a breath.

“There was…” he trails off, swallowing visibly. “There was one bloke who went on a bit of a power trip, I guess – always wanted to fuck me, have me suck him off, never the other way around… Like I was the big, bad rugby player, but he got to see me…”

Dylan had braced for bad, but this still somehow seems worse than he could have imagined. At least, he tells himself, this was one of the worst, and Owen seems aware that it wasn’t his fault this time.

_Shit_ , though, if it doesn’t explain Owen’s old problems with communication and talking things out.

“And… Sarries know about that?” he checks, blinking when Owen shrugs.

“They know it wasn’t a good relationship – he was one of the ones they met, and they hated him instantly. They don’t know the details.”

_Right_.

“Owen, I…” he stops, coughing to clear his throat, and tries again. “Owen… Love…”

“It’s fine,” Owen shakes his head. “It was years ago – I wasn’t even playing for England then.”

That doesn’t really make it any better, because Owen would have been twenty at _most_ , and already dealing with that kind of shit – and it wouldn’t stop for completely another five years.

“I love you how you are,” Dylan feels the need to tell him. “And never change who you are just to stay with someone – but I hope you never need that, obviously.”

Silent, Owen nods and bites his lip, then draws in a deep breath, ribs rising and falling.

“I don’t want anyone other than you, alright?” he returns quietly. “You’re older than me – so what? You’ve retired – that happens, I’ll have to do that one day.”

Dylan has to snort at the face he pulls on saying that.

“But it’s not the end, yeah? You’ve got so much more to do, and I want to be there for that…” Owen trails off for a second, appearing almost wistful, before he shakes himself. “And if I have a problem with how you’re treating me, I’ll tell you – just like you taught me to, yeah?”

Weakly relieved, unsure whether it’s really a good idea to move on from this discussion quite yet, Dylan returns the small grin that Owen flashes him. Perhaps, if Owen considers the conversation over in that regard, then it is. At the very least, it’s been at least two years since the last time that could have happened, and Owen seems quite happy to point out how Dylan has inadvertently helped him.

For a moment, comfortable silence falls, then Owen sits back with a sigh.

“Was there… anything else you wanted to say?” he asks. “Or should I get on with reassuring Dad that Christmas won’t be a bloody nightmare?”

“I’ll let you know if I think of anything,” Dylan promises, and with a nod, Owen stands to stretch, wandering back over to his abandoned cooking as he texts his father. “Put some music on, would you? Nothing shit, though.”

Absent-mindedly, Owen hums a confirmation, then changes course to set his phone next to the radio, appearing to mull over his choices before smiling to himself; the expression lights a warm glow in Dylan’s chest.

“That’ll do…”

It’s probably appropriate, Dylan reflects, that the first time they listen to music together in their _shared_ home, it’s Justin Bieber.

Now, he just has to get Owen to start singing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise I'm not a Justin Bieber fan. But Dylan is.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally got something more out for this... Not sure it's exactly my best writing, but I just wanted to get it written and posted so I can feel bad about one less thing.
> 
> In other news, I have a calendar to organise myself this year and actually *revise*, I'm back into a fairly regular training schedule for now and actually feel like I'm getting fitter again, we've got new blocks - which probably means nothing to anyone without personal experience in the world of competitive swimming but I promise is very exciting, because they're the ones with the adjustable back-foot board - I get to start full contact next week (*finally*), I'm very much overly reliant on one specific person for good mental health and am trying not to commit to a future job purely on the basis that I'd get to see him again... And we're really all good. I actually managed to have a good talk with my mum about a teacher I used to have who seems shittier every time I think about how much she fucked me over, and there are things I found out in that conversation which I don't know how to feel about, but I also got a lot off my chest, and... yeah...
> 
> Anyway:

Sleeping through the night is a relief, but it doesn’t compare to waking up to Dylan’s drowsy smile, Owen decides as he cranes up for a gentle kiss before pushing himself reluctantly away from the warmth of Dylan’s body and slipping out from under the covers altogether. It’s strange to notice that, although he doesn’t want to leave his boyfriend’s company, it actually feels easier to get up than it has over the last week or two – perhaps now that he no longer has to fight to ignore the ever-present longing to stay at Dylan’s side and can feel assured that when he comes home, Dylan will be all his once more.

Maybe, it’s simply because he’s better rested.

Whatever the case, there’s something nice about dressing under Dylan’s sleepy but unashamedly appreciative gaze again, slipping from the bedroom with a swift but sincere declaration of love thrown over one shoulder and catching the bleary reciprocation before he closes the door softly once more.

The world outside seems brighter as well, a direct contrast to the bleary reality that Owen spent the last week both hating and appreciating for the escape it gave him from the constantly stifling atmosphere at home. However bad it felt at the time, they’re through it now, probably stronger for it; Owen certainly feels lighter for having explained his relationship history a little, even if something about Dylan’s reaction makes him think it might not be the last time that they discuss it.

“You’re in a good mood,” Jamie observes when he arrives at training, and Owen quickly rearranges the bright smile that has stretched his cheeks almost to the point of pain since waking into something softer, shrugging in response to his best friend’s words. “Oh, come on, mate… You’ve been miserable for the last week _at least_ and I can’t even mention it?”

Sighing, Owen turns his gaze away to avoid Jamie’s eyes and fights the urge to shrug a second time.

“Bit of trouble between me and Dyl, is all,” he offers after a moment, turning back to catch Jamie’s frown. “We got it sorted last night.”

“And you’re all good?” Jamie checks at once. “Has he – I mean…?”

“We’re all good,” Owen confirms, then sucks in a deep breath to exhale between words as he admits, “That was actually… one of the things we talked about. My past relationships.”

“Oh.” Jamie blinks, apparently surprised, but Owen doesn’t miss the way he relaxes. “He _must_ be doing well.”

“Because two years isn’t a good enough sign of that?” Owen returns, gaining a snort in response. “Come on. At least let me get changed.”

“God forbid I keep you from rugby for five minutes,” Jamie teases, but the glint in his eyes is one of fond understanding, and he seems just as eager to turn for the changing room as Owen is. “It’s good to know you’re doing well, mate.”

Owen simply leans in to nudge the shorter man with his shoulder, grinning when Jamie returns the gesture with some rougher jostling. That’s how Jamie’s going to do it, is it?

_Well, two can play that game, Jinxie…_

Dylan’s arms are warm where they snake their way around Owen’s chest, branding solid comfort into Owen’s ribcage through their jumpers as one foot nudges gently against the outside of Owen’s own. Every exhale sifts its way gently through Owen’s hair, a lightly soothing tickle, and Owen doesn’t think he could possibly be more comfortable.

“ _Owen_ …”

Small hands tug insistently at his arm, and he cracks one eye reluctantly open to find Gabe frowning at him from beside the couch; Dylan huffs out a quiet laugh, but doesn’t shift from where he’s peering over Owen’s head to see his phone screen.

“Stop being boring and come play rugby?” Gabe begs, to a louder chuckle from Dylan, and Owen digs his elbow subtly into his boyfriend’s ribs as Gabe’s eyes widen in a silent plea. “Come _on_ … _Please_ …?”

For a moment, Owen considers his options. On the one hand, sitting between Dylan’s legs, half-asleep in the wake of Christmas dinner, is cosy and nothing more or less than the perfect activity right now. On the other, he hasn’t seen much of Gabe lately, and he’s only here for a few days – never mind that it _is_ rugby…

“Alright,” he agrees, muffling his sigh as he shifts to stand and biting back a grin when Dylan grunts in response to a well-placed hand just far enough away from his groin to be safe when Owen puts most of his weight on it; the pinch Owen gets in return, harshly biting into one buttock where Gabe can’t see it, is more than worth it.

Out in the garden, kicking the ball back and forth and unable to hold back a smile at Gabe’s increasingly adventurous attempts at trick-shots, Owen has to admit that he’s glad he came out. As much as he wouldn’t admit it to his sisters – never mind Gabe himself – his little brother is probably his favourite out of his three younger siblings, and he’s fairly certain he would have regretted passing up on this.

“Owen,” Gabe starts finally, Owen managing a strained acknowledgement as he stretches to gather a stray kick, almost loses his balance and has to take several steps to regain it as he juggles the cold, soggy ball in slightly numb hands, “What’s ‘propose’ mean?”

“‘Propose’?” Owen repeats, a little breathless from the unexpected exertion, and Gabe nods. “Er… Why?”

“I heard Dylan say it to Dad when he was helping in the kitchen this morning,” Gabe shrugs, apparently without any idea of the magnitude of what he’s just said. “What’s it mean?”

Owen’s lips work soundlessly.

“Is it a bad word?” Gabe presses; Owen manages a shake of his head. “Is it something I’m not meant to know ‘cause I’m too young?”

Again, Owen can only shake his head, slowly gathering his thoughts. This doesn’t necessarily mean anything, he reminds himself; they’ve just spoken about it recently, is all.

“Then _what_?” Gabe demands, apparently fed up of waiting for Owen to recompose himself as he bounds over to tug at Owen’s arm. “Come _on_ , Owen…”

_Right_. Eight-year-old on the loose and all that.

“Proposing,” Owen starts carefully, shaking away any other thoughts that stray into his mind; he can talk about it with Dylan later, “Is when you ask someone to marry you.”

“Oh…” Gabe’s eyes widen. “ _Oh_ … Is Dylan going to…?”

“I don’t know!” Owen cuts that train of thought off, words more of a yelp than he would have liked, and Gabe backs off with obvious reluctance. “I mean – It’s not – It’s often a surprise, mate.”

“Oh, yeah…”

Owen manages to keep himself outside for a few more minutes after that, his mind abuzz with questions and doubts and everything in between, before he has to give up on trying to stay focused and excuse himself under the guise of not wanting Gabe to catch a cold. Does he talk to Dylan? Doesn’t he talk to Dylan? What if Dylan proposes in the next few days? What would he _say_?

Are they ready for that? After the last few weeks, are they _really_ …?

But they got through that, and in doing so, they both practically committed themselves to each other anyway. They’ve been together two years, and maybe that’s not the longest, but at their age…

Really, it all comes down to one question: what would his response be if Dylan asked?

It’s a fairly easy answer.

It takes an hour to get his dad alone, in the kitchen as they clear up plates and cutlery, shovelling as much as possible into the dishwasher, and Owen wastes no time in cutting to the chase.

“Gabe said Dylan was talking to you about proposing this morning,” he mutters under his breath, with a wary glance around to make sure that no one else is listening, and his dad stills immediately. “What… did he…?”

“He brought it up,” his dad admits slowly, setting the plates he’d been holding quickly in place before straightening to meet Owen’s eyes. “He was thinking of it in the next few months, but he was going to talk to you before that. To be fair to him, I asked him where you were at.”

“Oh,” Owen relaxes, looking away. “Yeah, we’ve spoken about it once or twice. I just… I wasn’t sure if it was still on the cards after the last few weeks, but I guess… Okay.”

His dad’s eyebrows rise.

“Okay?” comes the mildly incredulous repetition. “Owen, come on – give me more than that.”

Unable to find any response but an awkward laugh and shrug, Owen lifts a hand to the back of his neck to rub nervously and checks around the kitchen again to make sure that there really is no one else around.

“How do you feel about it?” his dad presses, smile filled with fond warmth. “Would you say yes if he did?”

Like he even has to think about that.

“Faz!”

Owen halts on his way to the tunnel, having finished his rounds to thank the crowd for supporting them in their match against Worcester, on hearing Brad’s shout, and twists towards his Captain as Jamie and Elliot turn with him, surprised to find Brad beckoning him quite insistently back onto the pitch. Briefly, he wonders why Brad can’t simply come to him for whatever needs to be said, but what Skips wants, Skips gets…

With a sigh, he starts back towards the older man, vaguely noticing Jamie and Elliot following on his heels but paying it no mind; if they want to stay out a little longer in this cold, that’s on them – especially if they end up ill as a result.

“Good game today, mate,” Brad tells him earnestly, wrapping an arm around his shoulders to squeeze. “Just… See, the thing is…”

Owen waits, trying to keep his impatience and confusion from showing on his face. Brad isn’t normally one to mince words, and maybe the rest of his teammates seem unusually happy to stand out here in this temperature, but he’d like to get on with his recovery, thanks.

“Is something the matter?” he asks, and Brad grimaces, but shakes his head.

“No, nothing’s wrong… Nothing at all…”

Bewildered, Owen watches Brad’s eyes flicker left, over his shoulder, then the older man grins, and Owen finds himself spun to catch sight of the rest of his team all standing in a vague circle of sorts around them, grinning widely at him.

“Er…”

Uncertain, he turns to Brad for an explanation, but his Captain is gone, stepping back to join Will Skelton. _The fuck is going on?_

“Owen,” Dylan starts softly, seeming to appear from nowhere as his quiet words carry clearly across a pitch that suddenly seems completely devoid of any other noise, and creeping realisation starts to seep through Owen’s brain, an intangible sense that he somehow knows what’s about to happen that doesn’t quite achieve clarity through the remaining confusion and growing, indecipherably warm surprise. “Jinx wanted me to make some big speech for this, but I’m going to keep it short. Um… Things haven’t always been plain-sailing for us, and we’ve had our ups and downs, but we always seem to come out stronger for it, and over the last few months – even the last year, maybe – I’ve started to realise that… I’m not sure what I’d do without you around anymore. Maybe this isn’t the right time – maybe you want to wait a bit longer, and I’ll be fine with that if you want to – but you would really make me very happy if, right now, you agreed not to make me find out what I’d have to do without you.”

_Jesus fucking Christ._

“What I’m saying is…” Dylan blows out a rushed breath, hand slipping into his pocket, and Owen desperately wishes that he had something more to do than gape as the older man takes a knee on the artificial turf.

_Dad lied_ , is the next thought that registers, as the black box that he knew he’d see comes into view, and faintly, he decides to give his father a piece of his mind once he’s home and has finished making sure that tonight is one to remember for Dylan. His boyfriend – more, soon – deserves that at the very least.

On second thoughts, Dylan has surely lied to him by omission as well. Not that it matters. Owen doesn’t really care in the face of what’s happening – _shit_ , this is actually _happening_.

“Owen Andrew Farrell,” Dylan continues, clearing his throat as he opens the box and twists it around for Dylan to see the ring inside, “Will you marry me?”

Throat working soundlessly, it takes Owen a second to realise that he can nod instead of forcing out words that really aren’t coming to him right now. It takes him another to engage the muscles in his neck in order to do so, but it’s more than worth it for the beam that splits Dylan’s face at once, and certainly for the warm embrace he finds himself enveloped in once Dylan has slipped the ring onto his finger – and since when does Dylan know the right size? How long has he been planning this?

Those are questions for later, Owen decides distantly as Dylan’s lips meet his – when his teammates have finished cheering and they’re away from the remaining crowds and cameras, back home where all of this can sink in for real and Owen is alone with his boyfriend – _no_ , his fiancé.

It’s really a credit to how much this means to him that it takes a good minute for reality to come slamming back in with the dawning realisation that people are likely _filming_ this; tomorrow, or even tonight, it will probably be all over social media.

Owen does _not_ plan on letting anyone peddle any more of his private life for entertainment than entirely necessary, and more than that, he wants to get somewhere with Dylan alone, where he doesn’t have to share the older man with anyone for a bit. Call him selfish, but right now, Dylan is very definitely _his_.

In however many months’ time, that will be official.

Owen can’t _wait_.

**_England rugby_ **

**_@EnglandRugby_ **

**_Congratulations to England Captain @owen_faz on his engagement to long-time boyfriend and previous England Captain @DylanHartley!_ **

**_Rugby on BT Sport_ **

**_@btsportrugby_ **

**_@DylanHartley steals show after Saracens’ stunning 10-try performance vs. Worcester with heart-warming proposal to boyfriend @owen_faz. Congratulations to both!_ **

**_pic.twitter…_ **

**_Premiership Rugby_ **

**_@premrugby_ **

**_When your boyfriend’s teammates are your best wingmen! The touching moment @Saracens helped @DylanHartley propose to @owen_faz after incredible win over Worcester…_ **

**_pic.twitter…_ **

**_Saracens_ **

**_@Saracens_ **

**_Congratulations to our very own @owen_faz on his engagement after this weekend’s game! Touching moment for all and a great way to round off the weekend._ **

“You’re a bastard,” Owen repeats dryly, to another chuckle from his dad as Dylan’s soft huff of amusement clouds against the back of his neck. “You _told_ me – Since when do you keep _Dyl_ ’s secrets?”

Ronnie snuffles at his legs, and he stretches in a half-hearted attempt to reach down and pet the dog without having to move anything other than his arm, but he’s too far away and definitely too comfortable to move; Ronnie doesn’t seem too fussed, merely turning after a few minutes to pad from the room, back to the bone that Dylan apparently bought for him while Owen was warming up for the match earlier today. (When Owen raised an eyebrow in silent question, Dylan’s response had been to shrug and explain, “I can’t expect to marry you if I’m not in Ronnie’s good books, now, can I?” It wasn’t been something Owen dwelt on for long, with far better ~~people~~ things to do.)

“Since it’ll pay off by making you very happy,” his dad returns, and Owen doesn’t have an answer to that, not least because Dylan’s thumbs have just found the knot in his traps and he’s not sure he can even breathe through that. “Should I take it you said yes?”

Is that even a question that needs to be asked?

“Of course I did,” Owen grits out as soon as the pressure from Dylan’s hands relents, though he can’t keep the fondness from his own voice even as he continues. “You know, I have a good mind _not_ to ask you to be best man.”

His dad’s laugh is loud, but it tails off quickly as Dylan’s hands still entirely. Owen holds his breath of his own accord, this time, waiting for his dad’s response.

“You’re serious?” his dad demands, which doesn’t really tell him much about the emotion behind the words.

“I mean…” Owen bites his lip, even as Dylan’s hands slowly start to move again, one working gently into the knot as the other reaches around to hold Owen’s upper body still. “Not about _not_ asking you. But… I mean, if you don’t want to – is that weird? Asking you to be…?”

“No!” his dad rushes out, sounding almost choked up. “No, I’d love to… God, mate, it would be an absolute honour.”

Owen has to cough to clear his throat, strangely affected by the passion in his dad’s words, before he can speak.

“Good – that’s good,” he manages, voice cracking just slightly as it sinks in that little bit more how real this is.

He’s getting married. To Dylan. To _Dylan_ , who has taught him so much and still continues to every day, who accepts him for who he is and loves him seemingly unconditionally, and he can’t think of anything better right now.

He’s starting a family with the man behind him, able to properly commit to Dylan, make it all official and show the world who he loves, and he honestly couldn’t be happier.

As if Dylan can sense his rising emotions, lips press to the back of his neck, hands abandoning the task of easing out his aching muscles in favour of slipping around his waist, and it’s so incredibly easy to sink back against the familiar heat of Dylan’s chest as he struggles for more to say.

“Thanks,” he gets out finally. “I – I’ll talk more to you and Mum later, yeah?”

“Of course, mate,” his dad assures, soft and warm. “Go spend some time with your new fiancé. I love you, yeah?”

“Love you too, Dad.”

The call ended, Owen sets his phone aside and twists in Dylan’s arms to find the older man’s lips, ignoring the strain in his back in favour of relaxing into the man he loves.

“You’ve got good timing,” he murmurs on drawing back, lifting his eyes to meet Dylan’s. “What were you going to do if we lost terribly?”

“Save it for next weekend,” Dylan replies honestly, shrugging. “I was thinking about doing it last weekend, you know. But…”

Owen has to laugh at that, even as it sinks in that Dylan really must have been planning this a long time.

“How long have you had this?” he asks quietly as he lifts his hand in reference to the ring settled on his finger, and Dylan smiles gently, catching the appendage to turn it over and kiss the calluses of Owen’s palm.

“Since… About a week after we had that talk,” he admits freely. “I just… It really hit home that I don’t want to lose you at all – and I don’t really see us failing to get through something anytime soon. I… I felt like I was ready to make it official, so why not gamble on you?”

“Romantic,” Owen teases, a laugh rising at Dylan’s mock-pout. “You just wanted to beat me to proposing.”

“Maybe,” Dylan grins, lacing their fingers together and squeezing. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“Hmm…”

Owen frowns, teasingly dubious, and Dylan’s laugh vibrates against him as the older man tugs him in for another kiss, sweet and tender and everything that Owen could possibly want.

There’s nothing, he thinks, that will be able to bring him down from this high for at least the next week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PRL: Hold my beer...
> 
> Alternatively:  
> Lord Dyson: Relegation would be disproportionate.  
> PRL: ...you can guess where this is going, right? I don't need to actually write it? I mean, come on, they're just taking the piss by this point. I was going to write something about all of this, and I've just decided not to, because I don't think it'd help anyone, least of all me. Like, I tried reading what someone else had written, and just crashed emotionally (it hadn't been a good day anyway), then had to wait two days of feeling like shit before going to that one person who actually seems able to help me help myself (if that makes sense). And that new thing about hiding the trophies... I mean... Not to mention that PwC, the company that assessed Maro Itoje's image rights - a valuation which was apparently wrong and Saracens got blamed for - are PRL's independent auditors of the cap in the first place. Like? So the financial experts you employ to enforce the cap told a club that something was worth this much, and you decided to punish the club for *breaking said cap* because you've now decided that you think that valuation was too high? Something about that seems a little...
> 
> You know what? I'ma stop.
> 
> Also, Word says this is exactly 20000 words, so I'ma stick with that.

**Author's Note:**

> Er... Yes. So that *did* actually happen. I did write that. _Why_ I did may remain a mystery for a long while yet, but... I mean, why not?


End file.
